


Worth a Thousand Words

by MsMusic



Series: VLD Presents [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Canon Compliant, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Langst, Minor Keith/Lance (Voltron), some internalized biphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 15:43:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11924043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMusic/pseuds/MsMusic
Summary: Lance learned as a kid you have to work hard for everything, because nothing is gonna get handed to you in life. So he worked hard, helping out his family, earning his scholarship to the Garrison, and seeing himself exactly how the rest of the world saw him: worthless.





	Worth a Thousand Words

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second fic in my series VLD Presents.  
> (Note that this fic was written and posted pre-seasons four.)  
> I hope you enjoy my take on Lance's story!

The first time Luis Sánchez felt worthless was when his father left. They didn’t have much, just a small townhouse near Varadero. He was young, only five or six at the time, but when he saw the moving truck on the street out front, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was his fault somehow. No one in his very large family bothered to tell him it wasn’t. Everyone was too busy trying to make ends meet without Luis’s father around.

A few years later, another man came into the picture. A man named Edward McClain. Edward was a fairly wealthy white man. He had come to Cuba on business and had fallen in love with Luis’s mother. He decided to move to Cuba to be with her and help take care of Luis and his many siblings. Things were finally looking up for the Sánchez family until Edward had to go away to America on business. He promised to come home, but wasn’t seen or heard from for nearly six months. By the time he finally did show up, he was remote, detached, reserved. When he returned to America a few weeks later, he never came back. He just left behind a pregnant single mother and a broken home.

As time went on, Luis learned not to expect anything from anyone. To get anything in life you had to work hard for it, because nothing was going to get handed to you. So he worked hard, trying his best to help his family in any way he could. He couldn’t afford to have dreams of escaping his little hell, couldn’t afford to think he could ever go to school let alone the stars, couldn’t afford to believe he was worth any more than the dirt he walked on.

And then came the Garrison. He knew it was a long shot. He was just a poor kid from Cuba, there was no way he would get to go to some fancy private space academy in a completely different country. But he applied anyway. He didn’t use his real name. He knew there was no way Luis Sánchez was getting into the Galaxy Garrison. He chose the first name Lance. It just felt right to him, felt close enough to his roots while still being passable for a typical white kid. The last name he wrote down was none other than McClain. He chose it as a reminder that he was gonna have to work hard if he was to join the Garrison and that he wasn’t going to rely on anyone else.

Lance was accepted on a full ride scholarship. He was going to be a pilot in the Galaxy Garrison of the United States of America. He kissed his big family in his small house in Varadero, Cuba goodbye.

Adjusting wasn’t easy. Lance knew very little English in the beginning and didn’t know anybody. Nobody wanted to talk to the weird kid with the foreign accent. Lance did manage to make one friend on orientation day. He was big, a bit taller than Lance and nowhere near as skinny, but he was sweet, much less intimidating that his size made him seem. He was gentle and kind and very patient with Lance as he tried to get adjusted to the world around him. Later that evening, when they got roommate assignments, Lance was pleased to find that he and his new friend, Hunk, would be rooming together. Maybe this wouldn’t be as tough as he thought.

It was tougher. The classes were intense, the training was brutal, and the competition was insane. Lance worked hard, harder than he ever had. He had to if he wanted to keep his scholarship. So he buckled down and pushed himself as hard as he could. He kept to himself, reached damn near the top of his class, even got rid of his accent. He would call home whenever he could to let them know how things were going. It helped him remember how much pressure he was under. He was the first of his family to ever make it this far, he had to get it right. No slacking and no distractions.

Well maybe there was one distraction. At the top of Lance’s class, just a few points above him, was the most incredible boy Lance had ever seen. He was exceedingly smart, he took to piloting like a natural, he was so aloof and cool and… beautiful. It didn’t take Lance long to realize he had a crush. It terrified him. He didn’t know what to do. He would lie awake, crying, just trying to figure out how to deal with it. He knew he wasn’t gay, he still liked girls, he just… he couldn’t help but feel like he was letting his family down. There was so much riding on him going to school, graduating, getting a job, getting a wife, having kids, being _normal_.

Hunk walked in on Lance crying one day. He made Lance tell him why. Not that Lance wouldn’t have told him anyway, he’d just hoped it would be on his own terms. That evening Lance called his family and told them, with Hunk on speaker for support. They were comforting, told him again and again that they loved him no matter what, that they didn’t care if he was bi or gay or whatever, they just wanted him to be happy. He tried so hard to believe them. He wanted more than anything to think that they were right, that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, that he deserved to be happy. He tried.

The boy got kicked out. Discipline issues. Lance was bumped up to fighter pilot in his place. His family was proud. Lance wanted to be. He wanted to feel like maybe he had finally done something right. But no matter what he did, all he ever heard was how he could never be as good as _him_. As that _boy_. That golden boy, that natural winner, that perfect rival, that straight A student, emphasis on straight. Well if he was so perfect, why did he get kicked out? Lance hated him. He hated him with everything he could. Almost as much as he hated himself.

Then came the crash. After a year of not being good enough, of failing again and again, of trying to fit in, of only having one real friend and one new kid Pidge who just kinda tolerated him, there was a ship crash. An alien ship carrying the lost pilot Takashi Shirogane from the Kerberos mission. He and his “friends” went to investigate. And of course they ran into _him_ there. They broke Shiro out and escaped. So much for being normal.

And then there was Voltron. The five of them got flown off into space and were chosen to be champions of some intergalactic struggle. And it was exciting. Lance was part of something incredible. He was a hero, he finally had something that he could be proud of, that his family could be proud of. His family who probably didn’t know where he was. He missed home. A lot. After all that time trying to get away, all he wanted to do was go back. But he couldn’t. He was part of a team, and he couldn’t let them, or the galaxy, down. Not like he had everyone else.

In the beginning he really felt like he was finally making a difference, like what he was doing was worth something, like _he_ was worth something. But as time went on that diminished. He began to wonder if the team really needed him. What made him so special that he should be a part of this team. He always thought of himself as the sharpshooter, but was he really? Shiro had said it once, but was that really what he brought to the team? Or was he just some kid they brought along because they needed five people. Lance tried to stay strong and confident, but he couldn’t keep those thoughts from worming their way inside his head.

Lance started to see the team as more and more of a family. Hunk had already been like a brother to him, Shiro was like an older brother/dad figure, Pidge reminded him so much of his little sisters, and… _him_? Keith? Well, as time passed, he came to see them more as friends. They still played at banter, they still loved pushing each other’s buttons, but they really did work well together. Lance no longer saw Keith as this aloof attractive badass or some arch nemesis, he was a person. A real person with real depth, not some image for Lance to crush on or despise, but a friend. And that’s what they were. And that’s all they were. And that was fine. Yeah, that was fine.

Things got a little more complicated when Shiro disappeared. Keith was hit hard. He was probably the closest to Shiro among them, so it made sense that he would be, but this was not what Lance had expected. Right after Shiro vanished, Lance and Keith got into an argument. Some things were said that shouldn’t have been and Keith had stormed off to his room. When Lance followed him to apologize for his actions, there Keith was, tearing the room to bits. It wasn’t until he bumped into Lance that he finally broke down in tears. Lance stayed with him, calmed him down, made sure he was going to be okay. He stayed there for a long time.

This became somewhat of a regular occurrence. Lance would stop by Keith’s room from time to time. They didn’t talk much, and when there was talking it was usually Lance, but they enjoyed each other’s company. It made things easier somehow. Lance could feel the line begin to blur when it came to how he felt about Keith, but he tried his best to just be there as a friend. And Keith seemed to appreciate it. Lance hoped.

And then Keith became the leader. Lance couldn’t help but feel that familiar pang of inferiority when once again Keith beat him out on something. He respected the choice and was happy for Keith, but he couldn’t help but feel his self esteem crack just a little bit more. And to add insult to injury, even his own lion didn’t want him anymore. He had to start over with Keith’s old lion. It wasn’t easy. But he tried to remember that he wasn’t the only one adjusting to the new arrangement, that he wasn’t the only one struggling, that he wasn’t the only one that was not quite good enough. He tried.

Their first mission did not go very well. They made it out okay, but things most certainly did not go according to plan. Or at least it wouldn’t have if they even had one. Lance was crushed. He was a mess. He wasn’t worth the nonexistent dust on the immaculate ship they now called home. He went to Keith’s room to apologize for not being good enough, for screwing everything up by not being there to help in the beginning and then showing up only to have no clue what he was doing. He walked in ready to throw in the towel and resign when something happened.

Keith cut him off. He stopped Lance dead in his tracks and said the last thing Lance would have expected. Keith said thank you. Keith told Lance how much he appreciated having Lance there for him, how much he really needed the help and how important it was to him that Lance had been there. He told Lance how he didn’t get to tell Shiro before what happened. He told Lance that he knew he could be emotionally distant, but he hoped Lance knew how much Lance meant to him.

Lance did everything within his power to hold back his tears. For the first time in over ten years, Lance really felt like he was worth something to somebody. Even if he had a hard time finding that worth in himself. And while he knew he still had a long way to go, it was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked my Lance fanfic! You can check out the other fics in the series and/or check out this story's companion fic "Words Unsaid". Also please leave comments telling me what you thought, I'd love to hear some feedback. :)


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